Duty Bound by Samantha Chase Page B

attracted to him, despite everything.
    “You could do worse than having a bodyguard like me.” Humor was flickering in his eyes unexpectedly, which transformed him from cool and intimidating to breathtakingly gorgeous and somehow warm .
    “The police don’t think I’m in real danger.”
    “You’ve heard back from them?”
    “Yeah. They said they couldn’t trace the letter, but it wasn’t a direct threat so they think it’s just a crazy who sends those kinds of letters to anyone who says things they don’t like.”
    The flicker of amusement left his eyes, and he shook his head, glowering a little. I was pretty sure, this time, he was glowering at the police and not at me.
    For some reason, the expression didn’t annoy me. It actually touched me, filled me with a swell of feeling.
    He’d loved and trusted Gavin, the same way he did the other guys he was just drinking with. As frustrating as it was, it was almost sweet—that he was taking the fictional threat to me so seriously.
    So my tone was softer as I said, “I really think they’re right about it. The tires were incredibly mean and petty, but they weren’t an attempt on my life.”
    “These things escalate,” he murmured thickly. “They start small and get bigger.”
    My car was parked across the street, so I started to cross in the middle of the block, so I wouldn’t have to walk down to a crosswalk. There was hardly any traffic at this time of night, anyway. “Well, there’s no sign that this is getting bigger. So, for the last time, I appreciate the effort, but I really think you can back off now.”
    He stopped in the middle of the street and gazed down at me, frowning.
    “What?” I asked, suddenly flustered and breathless at the look in his dark eyes.
    “I don’t think I can.” His voice was still slightly thick.
    “You can’t what?” I was flushed again and paralyzed by his intense expression.
    “Back off.”
    “Why not?”
    It was rather a silly conversation, but it seemed to make sense to both of us.
    He shook his head and didn’t answer, and I wasn’t sure what we would have said and done if something hadn’t interrupted.
    Something else did interrupt.
    I was vaguely aware of lights approaching and started instinctively to get out of the middle of the road.
    Instead of slowing down, the approaching car sped up. I was so surprised I couldn’t move for a second, since the car was heading right toward me.
    Then something else slammed into me, and I was thrown to the pavement, kept from the worst of the impact by a pair of strong arms.
    The car continued, driving way too fast for a downtown street, and I tried in a muddled stupor to figure out what had just happened.
    There were just a few things I could process. One, I was now in a tangled heap on the ground. Two, my ankle had twisted in the fall and was already starting to throb. And, three, Levi was practically on top of me.
    “Damn,” he said, easing off me a bit. “Are you okay?”
    I just lay where I was and blinked, trying to get my mind to work.
    “Harper?” he asked, his voice more urgent. He took my face in his hands. “Talk to me. Are you okay?”
    “Yeah,” I managed to croak. “What happened?”
    “That fucking car almost ran you down. On purpose.”
    He helped me move to a sitting position, and I rubbed my face, still attempting to orient myself. When I started to push myself up to my feet—just because it’s instinct to jump up when you’ve fallen to the ground—he put his hands on my shoulders to stop me.
    “You pushed me out of the way?” I asked, finally putting a few pieces together.
    Levi’s eyes were still searching my face and body, looking for signs of damage, I assumed. “Yeah. Damn it, you could have been killed.”
    “But there’s no reason to think it was on purpose. Maybe the person was drunk.”
    I just couldn’t fathom that someone would have actually tried to kill me—intentionally. It didn’t fit with the way I understood the